State, State refonn, and democracy in Brazil of the New Republic

Abstract

Based upon an analysis of the Brazilian polyarchy, this paper describes the attempts of the New Republic govemments to implement the State reform, one of its main promises. The paper concludes that those governments real1y did not have any State reform project, in the sense of deeply changing their relations with society and imposing a regulatory pattern to serve democracy, equity and opponunity generating economic growth. All the rearrangements that took place did not change the core of the re1ations between State and society and only helped to deepen the crisis, either by worsening the fiscal problem, or by destroying the structures and mechanisms responsible for the operation of compensatory policies.